Discussing this question with a friend, who has a subtle mind and great
experience of the horse in semi-barbarous countries, and of many other
animals, wild and tame, in many regions of the globe, he put forward a
different explanation of the action of the horse in coming home to die,
which he thinks simpler and more probable than mine. It is, that a dying
or ailing animal instinctively withdraws itself from its fellows--an
action of self-preservation in the individual in opposition to the
well-known instincts of the healthy animals, which impels the whole herd
to turn upon and persecute the sickly member, thus destroying its
chances of recovery. The desire of the suffering animal is not only to
leave its fellows, but to get to some solitary place where they cannot
follow, or would never find him, to escape at once from a great and
pressing danger. But on the pastoral pampas, where horses are so
numerous that on that level, treeless area they are always and
everywhere visible, no hiding-place is discoverable. In such a case, the
animal, goaded by its instinctive fear, turns to the one spot that
horses avoid; and although that spot has hitherto been fearful to him,
the old fear is forgotten in the present and far more vivid one; the
vicinity of his master's house represents a solitary place to him, and
he seeks it, just as the stricken deer seeks the interior of some close
forest, oblivious for the time, in its anxiety to escape from the herd,
of the dangers lurking in it, and which he formerly avoided.
Pages:
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324